XXII

BETWEEN LAW AND MUSIC

At the famous old university of Heidelberg, in Germany, there was once a student named Robert Schumann. His father was dead, and his mother was determined that he should study law. But, like Handel, Schumann was much more interested in music than in law.

He often practiced seven hours a day, and even when he went on excursions, he carried a dumb keyboard with him in order to keep up his practicing. Once a week he and his friends had a "music evening." On these occasions Robert used to delight his listeners by improvising,—that is, he composed the music as he played it, without any previous preparation. He resembled both Handel and Beethoven in having the ability to improvise.

As you may imagine, Robert's study of law did not make much progress when his days were so full of music. He tried hard to become interested in law, but he found this impossible. At the age of twenty he wrote to his mother: "My whole life has been a twenty years' war between poetry and prose, or, let us say, music and law."

Frau Schumann was bitterly disappointed. She did not wish her son to become a musician, and yet she saw that he was very unhappy at Heidelberg. So she wrote to his former music teacher, Frederic Wieck, asking his opinion in the matter. Wieck decided that Robert ought to give up the study of law and make music his life-work.

Robert Alexander Schumann was born in the quaint little town of Zwickau in Germany. His father was a book seller, and in his father's shop Robert found many interesting books. He became very fond of poetry.

When he was six years old he took his first piano lesson, and soon afterward he began to compose. He wrote little dances and discovered that he could improvise.

It was a habit of his to sit at the piano and play about people whom he knew, describing their peculiarities in tone-pictures, just as a writer describes people in wordpictures, or as a painter shows them in portraits. For instance, he would play a rollicking tune to represent the character of one of his merry comrades, and a sharp, scolding, fussy little air to picture another playmate who was quarrelsome. The music was always sweet and dignified when Robert was describing some one whom he loved, but at other times he was quite capable of making fun of a pompous person by playing a stiff, stilted, comical tune which would set all his hearers laughing.

Robert's father was kind and sympathetic. He encouraged the boy's talent, and bought him a grand piano. But unfortunately when Robert was sixteen, his father died. We have seen that the mother disapproved of a musical career for her son, and so the boy was sent to the university of Leipsic to study law.

At Leipsic, as at home, Robert soon made friends who were interested in literature, art and music. In spite of

his good intentions to become a lawyer he spent most of his time playing the piano. He and his friends had a great admiration for the works of Sebastian Bach, who was then little known. It was not until a year later that Mendelssohn gave public performances of Bach's "Passion Music."

In Leipsic Schumann met Frederic Wieck, a distinguished teacher of the piano. Wieck had a charming and talented daughter named Clara, who played very beautifully although she was but thirteen years old. Robert Schumann was so inspired by this young girl's playing that he resolved to take music lessons of her father. The lessons continued as long as he remained in Leipsic.

The next year he went to Heidelberg, where, as we already know, he spent more time upon music than upon law. He was born to be a musician and we can imagine how happy and relieved he felt when his mother at last consented to let him study music seriously.

As soon as he had gained the long-desired permission, he hurried back to Leipsic and resumed his lessons with Wieck. He was eager to make up for lost time, and it seemed to him that he was not advancing fast enough in his playing. So, in order to get the best results, he tied the third finger of his right hand, thinking that the other fingers would then play more easily. What was his horror, when the time came to release his finger, to find that he